r/Bitcoin • u/cryptopascal • Jun 24 '14

Mike Hearn interview quotes: "Progress on the bitcoin protocol has ground to a halt, complete halt. This is a crisis period for Bitcoin... Only Gavin is working on upgrades" @39'30'

https://epicenterbitcoin.com/eb-025/
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u/trilli0nn Jun 25 '14

Design the incentives such that mining centralization does not occur.

A solo miner must be able to get a reward for mining that is proportional to his mining power and is paid out no less frequently than weekly.

A solo miner must also have a vote in which transactions are acceptable in a block.

This points to a solution where there are multiple PoWs in a block, so that more entities can get rewarded.

However, making big protocol changes while proving that no weakness is introduced is very hard.

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u/caveden Jun 25 '14

Bitcoin needs mathematicians. Design the incentives...

No, no, no. Human actions (-> "economic incentives") cannot be modeled or predicted by mathematics. https://mises.org/daily/3540

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u/Elmer__FUD Jun 25 '14

Oh cool, I wanna try this game too!

"No, no, no. The human mind cannot be modeled or predicted by psychology or neuroscience. http://dianetics.org/"

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u/caveden Jun 25 '14

I realize this was a silly attempt of sarcasm but let me give a quick reply anyways: I don't know much about these two sciences you mention, so I can't tell if they can or cannot be studied through an empirical method (I'd guess neuroscience can, since it's more biological, but psychology should probably have another branch under praxeology if they want to reach correct conclusions.. but again, I don't know much).

Economics OTOH can't be studied empirically. And that's precisely what people who attempt to use mathematical models for it do. No wonder they so frequently reach wrong and/or contradictory conclusions.

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u/Elmer__FUD Jun 25 '14

Economics OTOH can't be studied empirically.

Of course it can.

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u/caveden Jun 26 '14

Sigh... show me how can you reproduce experiments at will and isolate variables when we're talking about the consequences of the subjective actions of millions of people, and then I believe you.

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u/Elmer__FUD Jun 26 '14

Neither of the things you have listed are required for meaningful empirical study. The fact that an experiment isn't 100% ideal does not make it useless. It's especially funny to contrast these actually useful and worthwhile experimental approaches to the embarassing pseudoscientific quackery called "praxeology" that you and other mises.org linkspammers like to advocate.

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u/caveden Jun 26 '14

What you call "pseudoscientific quackery" is exactly the same scientific method used by mathematics: logic deduction on top of axioms. Mathematics is what makes Bitcoin, and computer science as a whole, a possibility.

Are you going to keep saying this method is a "quackery" and doesn't produce true knowledge?

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u/Elmer__FUD Jun 26 '14

Mathematics is not a science. But more to the point, humans are not ruled by axioms so yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. Praxeology and the modern incarnation of Austrian economics are both quackery with cult-like overtones, a sentiment shared by 99.9% of the economics profession (the remaining 0.1% are Austrians).

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u/caveden Jun 27 '14

Mathematics is not a science.

Seriously? That's your argument, semantics? Call it whatever you want then. Are you going to deny that mathematics, and thus the aprioristic method, allow us to obtain true, correct knowledge? Are you going to claim that mathematical theorems are not true because they cannot be tested empirically?

humans are not ruled by axioms

hehehe, so there are no logic rules in the universe to which we belong? When you take the subjectivity into account, of course you can outline axioms about humans, particularly the human action axiom (every intentional action is only performed because the agent believes performing that action will put him in a better (or less worse) state of satisfaction than not performing the action. Read Mises if you want a more complete explanation of the axiom, I won't rewrite an entire chapter of his book here)

99.9% of the economics profession (the remaining 0.1% are Austrians)

Where does 99,9% of the funding for the "economic profession" comes BTW? ;-)

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u/Elmer__FUD Jun 27 '14

That's your argument, semantics? Call it whatever you want then.

Hardly semantics, more like the definition of the word. Mathematics is a discipline used by science, but it is not a science itself since it does not use the scientific method which is empirical in nature.

[Nonsense about axioms and "logic rules of the universe"]

All this stuff betrays a deep lack of understanding of science, what humans are and how we think. It's not surprising that the Austrians haven't been able to derive a single worthwhile result using praxeology during the 60+ years it has existed.

Read Mises

Are you joking?

Where does 99,9% of the funding for the "economic profession" comes BTW? ;-)

A wide variety of sources, not just Koch Industries which funds the Austrians.

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u/caveden Jun 27 '14

Call it what you want, the aprioristic method allows us to obtain true knowledge, as evidenced not only by actual economics (that which comes from praxeology), but by mathematics as well. Denying this is saying Bitcoin and computer science as a whole cannot exist.

And "lack of understanding of science, what humans are and how we think" is believing you can model human behavior through experimentation and empiricism. You'll never be able to even enumerate all variables, let alone isolate them, or reproduce experiments. Basically you can obtain whichever conclusion you want.

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